


Firsts and Firsts

by beaubete



Series: Portrait of a Lady [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: It's mostly a blur, what happened in Turkey.





	Firsts and Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> For the 007 Fest 2018! Combining Moneypenny Monday with the Crack Prompt Table; I thought it would be fun to try to paint a picture of Eve in 9 mini fics. They don't happen in the same universe at all--some are canon and some are not and some are wildly AU--but I hope that they combine to be one rounded person, the same in all worlds. Think of this as a character exploration project.

Cold sweat prickles on her palms as she slides across the leather seat of the Jeep.  ‘Drive’, he’d said, and drive she does. Her lead foot hits the gas pedal with all the force of her thudding heart, and the Jeep jolts forward into the dense traffic.

It’s only mildly terrifying, adrenaline astringent and bitter in her mouth as she forces herself to cool, to slow, to calm.  Spy, Eve tells herself. She’s a spy, here for Queen and Country, and when that doesn’t work, she forces air into her lungs like a bellows, breaths huge and mechanical until she can make them even, as well.  Until her body stops knotting into confused tangles of muscle and she can control the cold shocks of panic that keep trying to climb from her fingertips up into the knuckles she has clenched white around the wheel.  The hot haze begins to recede.

The rendezvous.  It’s her whole purpose for being here, her first major mission abroad and so, so important; she’s meant to be at the rendezvous point just on time, unfollowed, to slide into place at just the right time to grab Ronson, to grab the hard drive, to dip in and seamlessly out.  She’s the getaway vehicle. Quite frankly, she’s half convinced her heart will beat clear through her chest and into the air that’s rich with Turkish spice. Slide in. Grab the agent and his prize. Slide out. Get away.

It never occurs to her that something might go wrong until it’s not Ronson’s lanky frame in the door as her tyres hit the kerb.  Those eyes—that grim jaw set. This is Double-oh Seven, and the whole mission has gone pear-shaped. Tits up. There’s blood on his hands.

There’s something cold at Double-oh Seven’s core, something somehow soothing.  Her jangled nerves stutter, slow their insistent throbbing. It’s either shock or flow; even she is surprised by the cool and easy banter between them.  The Jeep rips through an intersection and into a crowded market. Behind, the grunting sputter of police motorbikes.

“We’d better slow down; there are speed cameras,” he cracks, and after the mirrors, she just grins, feral teeth and mean.

She swerves, or tries to, but her fingers are bloodless on the wheel; he takes it from her, and she swears she only takes her eyes from him for a moment, only a moment.  It’s all he needs.

She follows.  Later, she doesn’t remember much of it through the dizzy haze of adrenaline that wraps her memory up in thick cotton batting.  She listens to the recording with Bill at her assistance, the both of them drinking. There’s no guilt, and that’s odd; she’d thought she’d feel more to hear it, that the wounds would open and she could extricate this shard of glass from her soul.  

There’s no catharsis to be had.  She’s as numb as she was when she’d said it: “Agent down.”  Bill’s eyes are solemn.

“I want out of the field.”

He nods.


End file.
